MUMBAI: The crime branch had prior information about gangster Abu Salem’s specific plan to kill music baron Gulshan Kumar, former city police chief Rakesh Maria has said in his book ‘Let me say it now’. Gulshan Kumar got protection. “Both the protectors and protectee relaxed.” Their sloth and complacency were punished by the patient underworld...,” the book said. Maria was posted in the director general’s office when he got a call from an informant on the night of April 22, 1997, indicating a plot to kill Kumar. Asked who was behind it, the informant said, ‘Abu Salem’. The gangster had also finalised his plan with his shooters and was to kill Kumar on his way to the Shiva temple he visited every day. In the morning, Maria called film director Mahesh Bhatt who confirmed with Kumar if he indeed visited the temple daily. Bhatt conveyed the information to Kumar. Maria told Bhatt he would inform the crime branch and Kumar should not step out of home before he gets protection. The crime branch extended protection to Kumar. On August 12, 1997, Kumar was shot dead while coming out of the Shiva temple. Maria learnt that the protection had been withdrawn after the Uttar Pradesh police commandos provided protection to Kumar’s cassette factory in Noida. The book also speaks of Maria alerting the crime branch in 1996 of a plan to kill union leader Datta Samant. He was shot dead on January 16, 1997.